" J "

I'm not sure how to begin a letter to someone who has so often made it clear they don't want to hear from me. Perhaps I should start by just acknowledging that this writing may be most unwelcome, and apologizing in advance if that's so. I don't know any other way to reach you, and I really wanted to reach you. I'm hoping that the time between may have helped to make it easier for you to hear from me.

It has been a very long time since I have seen you, or even heard anything about you and how you are. It finally does feel like we have entirely left each other's lives.

I miss you. I really do. You have a joy for living and a unique way of being that are so special, and so rare. I think about some of the things you did and I still laugh or smile about it. And I still remember how accepted and loved I felt by you. You are really a wonderful person and that is why I miss you from my life.

I think about you often and wonder if I will ever see you again. And I still, sometimes, imagine that we might someday be friends or at least on speaking terms.

I think I understand some things a little better now. It makes a lot of sense to me that you needed to protect yourself from my hurting you anymore. It must have been very painful to even be around me after I caused you so much trouble. I've realized that that may just be the way things have to stay.

I've also seen a bit more about me, not all of it good. In particular I see how sucked into my own little world I got when we were friends, and how I couldn't accept that you were someone who wanted to, and could help me live my life better by telling me things for my own good.

I am realizing that it would only make sense to be in touch if it was something that you wanted, something that would be helpful to you. Not because I want it. So I hope that there might be a way in which I could be somehow good for you. Only you could know if there is.

It does hurt to remember what happened, and I wish there was some way to erase that hurt from you. But there isn't. I know that you are strong and I think that you have gotten over me, but I still regret not knowing myself better at the time. I don't feel very good about how I treated you, yet I can also understand why it happened. That was me at the time, but it isn't me anymore.

I have thought hard in telling you how I feel, but I am not so sure in telling you, whether or not it would be a good or a bad thing for you. I think that it might be very unfair to place on you now, or at least kind of irrelevant. But it seems important to me, and my heart tells me that it would probably be OK. I am really, really sorry if I am wrong about that.

You showed me what it felt like to have someone care about me. I remember how strange it felt to hear you tell me that you cared about me... And that was because when you said it I kept thinking, "what will this cost?” Because I was deeply in love with you. And at the same time I was afraid of losing myself and all those things in my life by which I defined myself; that all seemed so important, but by which now are all lost.

So I wanted to tell you that I loved you, then and still do now, even though so much has happened. And so it hurts a lot that you are gone, and I miss you. I can imagine the way things could have been, if I had chosen a different path.

I hope that you will contact me, even if it's only to tell me to go fuck myself. It would be nice to know you if you are okay. It's the beginning of a new millennium. Maybe you will find that just once in a thousand years, you could possibly forgive some grievous wrongs, and take another risk by again trusting a little bit in someone who has hurt and betrayed you. Or at least try to maybe think about it. For that I can only hope.

" 7 "